On Joss Naylor and The Humility Of Endurance
There’s a question I’ve been rolling around for a while now. It’s about hill-running, and the people who do it. More specifically it’s about the people who are great at it. A commonality exists in their characters. It’s some combination of humility, of love, of grit, and of drive. All of which makes for an understated grace.
And so my question is essentially a chicken and egg scenario: is this personality type requisite to be great at hill-running; or does the activity itself cultivate it? Does running in the hills breed humility; or does humility breed greatness?
In other sporting contexts, it’s often the polar opposite of this personality type that leads to greatness. Think of Micheal Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher, Cristiano Ronaldo, Usain Bolt…
Some may be aloof, or suspicious of the media in a way that could be misinterpreted as humility, but it is not the same.
Most sporting cultures reward brashness, trash-talk, supreme confidence, mind games over your opponents. And of course there’s money and fame, fans and sponsors to appease, all of which muddies the waters. (But then think of Courtney Dauwalter or Kilian Jornet…)
I’ve been trying to come up with other comparable, individual sports in which success might be linked to humility, but I can’t think of many.
Perhaps it’s not complicated: when running in the hills, no-one is watching. There is only yourself to rely on or to blame.
Alongside humility, resilience and willingness to suffer have been the defining traits of many of the greats of hill-running. These people still shine as the North Stars in this culture, even if many of them never wanted nor asked to. Still today, with all our knowledge and all our science, nothing beats bloody-mindedness and sheer desire. Sufferance in pursuit of goals is among the most universally admirable traits of humanity, especially when no-one’s watching.
Think of Kenny Stuart, all eight stone of him, breaking records in the early 80s that still stand today. He had no watch, and often ate and drank nothing at all during races, even in marathons. He worked a manual job, trained after finishing work (in the dark and without a torch) then blew everyone away at the weekends.
And think of Joss Naylor, “just going and doing it”, initially in cut-off work trousers and heavy working boots, just whenever he could fit it in around his sheep. Then later through all the injury and pain that led doctors to advise him to give up work, nevermind fell-running.
He never won an Olympic medal, or earned a penny from his sporting achievements, or did anything much in the public gaze. His greatness was realised in wild, remote places.
In the modern era, think of Jasmin Paris, the only woman ever to complete the Barkley Marathon, leaving home at midnight when her kids are asleep, to run hill repeats all night in the Pentlands before they wake up in the morning.
And think of Finlay Wild, setting out to run Ramsay’s Round alone, telling almost no-one, let alone asking for support, and coming home to Glen Nevis 14 hours and 42 mins later, an hour and a half faster than anyone had completed a supported run.
But it’s “Iron” Joss Naylor that prompted this piece. He died in June, and this week a short documentary produced by The Guardian reminded us once again why he’s worth remembering.
The film gives a sense of the man, but focuses mainly on his Three Peaks record: the highest peaks in Scotland (Ben Nevis), England (Scafell Pike), and Wales (Snowdon), in one continuous journey.
In 1971, Naylor and his friend Frank Davies completed this journey in 11 hours 57 minutes. Naylor ran the 23 miles and climbed 3064 metres in just four-and-a-half hours. Just as impressively, Davies drove the 462 miles between peaks at an average speed of 64 mph.
(The appetite for risk in the driving for both men is perhaps as striking as the physical achievement of the running.)
But really this short documentary tells only a little of Naylor’s life and achievements, and barely scratches the surface of his legacy and legend.
For a far more fitting tribute, go to Richard Askwith’s wonderful account of Naylor’s funeral for Runner’s World.
He thought of his life in terms not of entitlements but of obligations: to his family, to his livestock, to his local community, to the landscape and, not least, to his sport.
The valley was part of who he was. The fells, the creatures that lived on them, the people who lived, worked or ran there with him: these were what he lived for and, I suspect, the source of much of his strength.
Between capturing the atmosphere of the occasion, a day when runners from all parts of the UK flowed into Wasdale Head in their club vests, like tributaries converging into something much greater, Askwith dives into some of the high points of Naylor’s life, but in doing so gives a sense of a man who was far greater than the sum of his achievements. I’d challenge you not to well up at the end, as I do no matter how many times I read it.
As Askwith makes clear, some of Naylor’s times may have been surpassed, but his spirit never will be. That, to me, is true greatness. It’s not necessarily in what you do, but in how you do it.
Yet he never made a fuss about it. This wasn’t the kind of super-toughness that flexes its muscles in public (or brands itself with labels such as 'the Hardest Geezer'). It was a profound, private, inner strength: a toughness from an earlier age that Joss seemed to see as a kind of duty, although most of us saw it as heroic.
And really, I think the true answer to my question is that humility comes first, greatness second. There is no sense, in any of these characters: Kenny Stuart, Jasmin Paris, Finlay Wild or Joss Naylor, that they are anyone but their authentic selves. It is all they can be.
And that, is something worth striving for.
(All quotations from Joss Naylor's funeral felt like 'the start of a race, not the end' by Richard Askwith)